Playing Basketball With Jeb Bush As The Ball

Wed, 30 December 2015

The said news is out: Jeb Bush is no longer trying to defend the copyright trademark he established months ago to the name “Jeb!” (with an exclamation mark added).

It should be almost impossible to feel sorry for the son of a billionaire ex-president and brother of another president, and a man so ignorant, arrogant and feckless that he has surrounded himself with the very same foreign policy ‘experts’ and ‘advisers’ that led us into two unwinnable trillion dollar ones at a trillion dollars each) in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Jeb has never shown any moral outrage whatsoever over his brother George’s inability to defend the United States from the worst terror attack in its history on 9/11, or the creation of the worst Big Government debt (to that point) in US history by his Big Brother.

Nor was Jeb outraged by Big Brother needlessly ordering the killing of hundreds of thousands of people in his unnecessary war in and on Iraq, which had nothing to do with Osama bin Laden before the Bush Dynasty created the ideal breeding grounds for ISIS/ISIL there.

No, all Jeb’s puffed up moral outrage goes to Trump, who opposed that war, who argues for restraint and sensible withdrawal from military bloodbaths in the Middle East and potentially even worse ones in Eastern Europe.

Yet there remains something extraordinarily woeful, pathetic and heart-wrenching about Jeb (or is still Jeb!?).

That lone, ridiculous exclamation point trying to stand so bravely and confidently in the night, is endlessly expressive. It speaks to a personality who should be one of the most confident human beings who ever lived, but who very obviously isn’t.

Jeb has demanded most recently that Donald Trump debate him one-on–one. Trump, who stands at more than 40 percent support among prospective Republican voters in the most recent polls against Jeb’s pretty consistent 3 percent, treated this claim with the amused, casual contempt it deserved.

Anyone who has watched any of the endless Republican debates (at least I am professionally paid for doing so) has at least enjoyed the guilty pleasures of seeing The Donald play basketball in every debate with Jeb (Jeb!) as the ball.

Poor Jeb (Jeb!) bravely marches to the attack, like the British Army going over the top to be massacred at the Battle of the Somme – only to see his worthy thoughtful points, clearly labored over by a legion of speechwriters be trumped as the Donald glares, stares, or mugs happily for the cameras, destroying Poor Jeb (Jeb!)’s pretensions and leaving him sinking slowly in the West every time.

By some estimates Jeb (Jeb!) has so far spent close to $60 million attacking The Donald in media ads, yet there he is, still wallowing at 3 percent or so in the polls while The Donald cruises along effortlessly at over 40.

In this contest, it’s The Donald who is The Road Runner and Poor Jeb (Jeb!) who is Wile E. Coyote, crushed under the intricate workings of his own Acme traps every time.

Soon the Iowa caucuses and the primaries in New Hampshire and South Carolina should finally write finis to Poor Jeb (Jeb!)’s Via Dolorosa. The election race will presumably be clearer. But it will never again be as much guilty fun.

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